That Wednesday’s Glenfarclas Cross-Country Chase is now a fixture at the Cheltenham festival makes for a bittersweet sort of satisfaction if you’re Enda Bolger.
A discipline once regarded as little more than a curio is established as a central part of the week’s action and that’s a sort of vindication for the trainer renowned as the maestro of cross-country racing. The downside is it has become a lot harder to win.
There will be no bigger story on day two of the festival if Tiger Roll wins the marathon contest for a fourth time, finishing his stellar career with a record-equaling sixth festival victory.
A pair of Aintree Grand National victories propelled the little star to massive public popularity but it is the cross-country that has perhaps been his most natural habitat.
The Tiger Roll team is convinced it is the race’s variety that transformed him from jaded back-number into a phenomenon. The scale of that transformation reflects the regard in which the race is now held.
The handicap controversy that prevented a tilt at a third National for Tiger Roll was rooted in cross-country displays officially rated very seriously indeed.
It makes the cross-country a very different beast now to when it first started in 2005 and Bolger’s pioneering enthusiasm wasn’t matched by many others.
Spotthedifference and the late JT McNamara were the first winners and no one was surprised at the source.
Having long been overwhelmingly dominant over Punchestown’s banks course, Bolger was widely expected to dominate since it was his field of special expertise.
Three more wins between 2007 and 2009 underlined the Co. Limerick based trainer’s mastery of the demands and requirements for such a singular challenge.
Along the way credibility started to match the spectacle of the new race.
Silver Birch was runner up in 2007 before landing the National a few weeks later. Balthazar King came close to doing the double. So did Cause Of Causes.
Any scoffing at the race as a novelty act had to acknowledge the quality of horse lining up was impressive.
Where Bolger had pushed the door open plenty followed him in. He struck for a fifth time in 2016 with another JP McManus owned winner in Josies Orders and remains synonymous with the cross-country challenge.
Famed
Even the most fervent Tiger Roll fans then will be wary of the old order when Bolger saddles the McManus owned trio of Prengarde, Shady Operator and Midnight Maestro. After all no one knows better what’s required to win.
“No. 1 is they have to stay. And you need one well up in the ratings. There’s no point turning up with a horse rated 100 because there are 140-150 horses there. You need a better animal that’s been prepared for it, which is good for the race.
“It’s a race that trainers don’t mind shoving in their good horses for now. They’re not half scared of it anymore. And lots of fellas have their own schooling facilities now which they didn’t have a dozen years ago,” he says.
Bolger’s Co. Limerick base is famed for its extensive variety of schooling obstacles that have helped him exert overwhelming dominance of Punchestown’s La Touche Cup over the years.
Cheltenham though is a very different challenge.
“The La Touche is a jumping test. The Cheltenham race has a lot more of those laurel hedges that a horse only has to brush through them.
“They’re more like you get in France where you brush through them rather than jump over them.
“In Punchestown, thank goodness, we still have the double banks there. There’s only one bank at Cheltenham and it’s pretty easy, you just run along the top and jump off, one stride on and immediately off. So it’s a different technique all-round
“Now, that is good for the sport because you don’t see horses getting a nasty fall . And as we all know it’s a good stepping stone to the National,” Bolger considers.
Tiger Roll has proved that but also confirmed the cross-country’s status as a worthwhile target in its own right.
Prengarde is the youngest runner and also something of a ‘dark horse’ going into Wednesday’s contest.
The reputation he brought from France after being purchased by McManus had him top ante-post betting lists for Cheltenham for weeks prior to his first run for Bolger.
That came just over a fortnight ago when out with the washing in a handicap hurdle at Naas. It was unremarkable but served its purpose as a pipe-opener for what will be a very different challenge.
Unusually, Midnight Maestro is the only one of the Bolger runners to have run over the course before and cut little ice there in December.
However Tiger Roll fans will know only too well that preparation won’t be an issue for any of the Bolger trio when one cross-country legend runs into the original.
